In conventional communications systems acknowledgments are either performed on an end-to-end basis, such as with TCP, or else on a hop-by-hop basis, as is accomplished with link layer acknowledgements. Such acknowledgements conventionally are in the form of feedback about specific packets or groups of specific packets.
Network coding enables feedback to consist only of the number of packets received or missing, as the identity of specific individual packets is no longer needed with coding.
The problem of reliable multicast can be difficult, particularly in a mobile ad hoc network NANET). If each node must acknowledge every packet it receives, and the number of nodes in a network is large, or the number of simultaneous multicast messages transmitted is sizable, a so-called “acknowledgment explosion” (or “ACK explosion”) can result.
It would be desirable to provide a system and technique for efficient transmission of information to multiple nodes in a network. In particular, it would also be desirable to provide a system and technique for efficient and reliable distribution of video or other content to users.